GP-AIMS

GMES and picosatellitebased automatic identification- and monitoring system for the large-scale railway transportation

The aim of the GP-AIMS project is the development of a real-time planning and monitoring system for the rail bound transportation within the Eurasian continent. The globalized economy is characterized by a high degree of distributed tasks over far distances and by that dependent from a reliable commodity flow (crude materials, parts from suppliers or final goods etc.). In contrast to vessel or air transportation railway transportation is more efficient as well as environmentally friendly (railroad transportation has a 60x less CO2 emission than airplane; transportation time is 50% less than by a cargo vessel). However a major shortcoming of the large-scale railway transportation is presented by accidents faults and damages either on the transportation vehicle or the rails or the switches. Also environmental influences like floodings or rockfalls etc. up to robberies are a big risk, especially on the long distances in sparsely populated areas form a considerable threat. In order to overcome the mentioned shortcomings, it is aimed to merge information from different sources, such as:

• GMES-Data, particularly TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X
• General earth observation information
• Satellite based position determination, e.g. Galileo
• Sensor information, on board of the railroad freight, forwarded by a picosatellite